Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/353

 AGKICULTURAL LIFE 341 -century the vine was much more generally planted than in our times. Indeed, the vineyards occupied so much of the land around Frankfort-on-the-Main that the municipality, in the interest of horticulture, forbade in 1501 any increase in the number of them. Between the years 1472 and 1500 the grape crop in the city possessions averaged seven hundred and thirty-two vats. It is easy to believe, then, that at the patrician weddings as much as a whole vat of wine was drunk, and that at the marriage of the patrician Arnold von Glauberg, in the year 1515, as much as six hogsheads were drunk. In the district of Kelheim, on the left bank of the Danube, vineyard after vineyard was to be seen on slopes that are now totally unproductive. In 1509 the city of Eatisbon possessed inside and outside of its walls forty-two vineyards. The red wine of Bavaria found a ready sale, not only at home, but abroad. Wine instead of beer was the general drink in those days in Bavaria : ' the day-labourer,' says the ' Book of Fruit and Grain,' ' always drank wine twice a day, as he ate meat twice a day.' The vine grew abundantly in the Bavarian palatinate. At Ulm three hundred waggon-loads of grapes were often sold on one market day. In Vienna the grape gathering lasted forty days, and two or three times daily nine hundred waggons entered the city laden with vessels of grape juice (must). But the vineyards par excellence of Germany were on the Upper Ehine, and the wines most prized were those made in the Upper Ehenish Province. The Benedictine Monastery of Johannesberg and that of the Cistercians at Eberbach were famous for the perfection of their wines. Bee culture also nourished throughout Germany,